You're making two points:
- Life as order coming from chaos
- Life as something coming from nothing
For the first one, it's fine for order to come from chaos if we're just moving order from one place to another. Think of it like having two boxes, one with order, and another with chaos. If we swap the contents of the two boxes, if we look at the box that had chaos it will look like order came from chaos. With more rigor: It's true that the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can't decrease. But this is true only for a closed system. If the system is not closed, such as Earth receiving sunlight from the sun, there is no problem with entropy decreasing.
For the second one, you're making an artificial distinction between alive and not alive, as if there is some hard barrier between the two. All matter obeys the same laws of physics whether it's part of a living organism or not. Under the right conditions, such as the primordial soup of early Earth, these laws of physics lead to molecules forming that can make copies of themselves, and which though (imperfect) replication eventually evolve into humans. The early self-replicating life forms are not around today and can't come about in our environment because every niche on the planet is teeming with life, from the smallest bacteria to the largest mammal. The primordial soup can't exist as it would be gobbled up by life forms that are already here.
As for laws of physics being random, I don't know where you're getting that from. I certainly made no claims about where the laws of physics come from. Saying they are random doesn't make sense. How do you pick a random number between 1 and infinity? It's nonsensical. And even if you could somehow make the concept rigorous, there is a degree of self-selection happening. If the universe had physical laws such that life was not possible, we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
"You're making two points: Life as order coming from chaos Life as something coming from nothing"
I'm guessing you have no answer to this- "So take the spastic prion, what caused it to manifest and what gave it the instruction to start "bending" itself?"
"For the first one, it's fine for order to come from chaos if we're just moving order from one place to another. Think of it like having two boxes, one with order, and another with chaos. If we swap the contents of the two boxes, if we look at the box that had chaos it will look like order came from chaos. With more rigor: It's true that the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can't decrease. But this is true only for a closed system. If the system is not closed, such as Earth receiving sunlight from the sun, there is no problem with entropy decreasing."
Sorry, but this isn't convincing at all. If you think order and chaos are amorphous and interchangeable then I don't know what to tell you, honestly. One is literally the absence of the other, just like darkness is absence of light.
"For the second one, you're making an artificial distinction between alive and not alive, as if there is some hard barrier between the two. All matter obeys the same laws of physics whether it's part of a living organism or not. Under the right conditions, such as the primordial soup of early Earth, these laws of physics lead to molecules forming that can make copies of themselves, and which though (imperfect) replication eventually evolve into humans. The early self-replicating life forms are not around today and can't come about in our environment because every niche on the planet is teeming with life, from the smallest bacteria to the largest mammal. The primordial soup can't exist as it would be gobbled up by life forms that are already here."
That is a massive cop out. There is nothing to say to anyone that asserts there is no distinction between alive and not alive.
"As for laws of physics being random, I don't know where you're getting that from."
If everything else originated randomly from nothing, it can only be random. There is nothing it can come from in Atheism, that is the point of being an Atheist.
"How do you pick a random number between 1 and infinity?"
I have no idea what you're trying to say here, this is nonsensical. Are you saying that it's nonsensical to pick a number? Or are you saying that because numbers are ultimately indefinite they are inherently chaotic?
"If the universe had physical laws such that life was not possible"
Why wouldn't it be possible? There are rules that dictate what makes life is possible, and they are apart of the whole picture that I'm talking about, although I am open to suggestions on what to call such things. You are saying "Well, that can't be anything other than it is because that would mean 'X'" But why would it mean X? Because of the rules within the physical world, the ones I am saying you are saying must be random.
I've heard Dawkins say it could have been seeded by advanced extra-terrestrials, but that's a constant loop, right? Because where did those come from? More advanced extra-terrestrials, and so on. And he addressed this by saying, 'well, it's better than believing in an eternal creator' or some shit like that.
I find that position ridiculous. To be an eternal creator, whether it is related to any book we have or not, the creator must be outside of creation, or else that's a paradox, it's a contradiction. All the rules that apply to the creation, whatever level of creation that is, can't be applied to something that is external to it. It doesn't make sense to assume that an eternal God must have a creator. I'm not sure why people assume that God could not be sentient/ sapient either, why would God have to be some kind of mindless force or element?
I try to keep an open mind. Peoples worldviews about such existential issues will then strongly affect how they behave.
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